


A Perfect Woman, Nobly Planned

by nonisland



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: 5 Things, Character Study, Episode: s03e06 The Changeling, Episode: s05e04 Another's Sorrow, Epistolary, F/F, First Kiss, Friends to Lovers, Rare Pairing, Rarewomen Treat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-31
Updated: 2013-03-31
Packaged: 2017-12-07 01:53:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,884
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/742792
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nonisland/pseuds/nonisland
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Four things Mithian learned to do for her kingdom, and one thing she did for herself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Perfect Woman, Nobly Planned

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lady_ragnell](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lady_ragnell/gifts).



> **warning:** contains vague reference to canonical torture (the events of "Another's Sorrow")
> 
> Title from William Wordsworth's "She Was a Phantom of Delight":  
> "The reason firm, the temperate will,  
> Endurance, foresight, strength, and skill;  
> A perfect Woman, nobly planned,  
> To warn, to comfort, and command;”
> 
> * * *
> 
> Should you find something, whilst reading one of my stories, that offends you/is incorrect/could offend others/is in any way problematic, please please _please_ do not hesitate to tell me. I will never spew hate at you, I will never attack you, and I will _always_ thank you for taking the time to let me know.

From the day she learned to talk Mithian has been taught how to speak. A queen must be able to inspire her followers to meet any challenge they face, or to entertain, just as a king must; but a queen must also be able to charm and diffuse, to be friendly, sweet, mild, and unassuming—even as she assumes a great deal. A queen must be more than equal to any battle or parade of words.

Mithian quite likes people, so it isn’t as much of a trial for her as it might have been. She is fortunately free of stammers, lisps, or anything else that would make her speeches less effective. She has a pleasant voice. She rarely has the urge to say things she shouldn’t, and she always manages not to.

She was shy when she was younger, but shyness, she knows, is not an indulgence a queen—or even a princess—can afford. By the time she’s old enough to put her hair up she has trained herself to speak as easily before her father’s full court or assembly of kings as to a single close friend.

It is at such an assembly of kings that she meets a princess who is everything Mithian herself has learned she must not be. Elena of Gawant is uncouth and uncontrolled, clumsy and raw, constantly making a spectacle of herself. She is also funny and generous and kind and fearless. Mithian, almost unwillingly, finds her spectacular.

* * *

“My mother rode,” Elena says when Mithian’s father compliments her on her seat. “She was brilliant at it. It’s the only way I take after her, really.” Her smile is dazzling in the sunlight, too-wide and too-earnest.

Of course Mithian can ride, too; a queen who cannot is trapped within her own city, unable to meet with other royals or her own subordinates, at the mercy of others’ honesty. But it has never occurred to her, until just now, looking at Elena’s open joy at being a-horse, that it can be something other than necessity.

When they return to Nemeth her father suggests Mithian learn to hunt as well. “You’re old enough now,” he tells her, “and I see you’ve taken to riding better.”

“Hunt?” she asks, surprised.

“Some kings and lords will have the conversations that lead to their meetings—or even the meetings themselves—in the midst of their leisure activities.” It makes sense, as everything makes sense when her father speaks. “If you have experience with bow and arrow—not spear, I think—they’ll have less excuse to exclude you.”

Mithian nods. She has learned logical argument, the game of chess, and two additional languages for similar reasons.

To her own surprise, she is an excellent shot; there is something deeply, glowingly satisfying about sending arrows exactly where she means them to go, and something natural in the motion of her arm.

Of course she’ll never be able to conduct her own state business like this, not without excluding too many others without her own advantages, but she’s very glad she learned.

Not quite idly, she wonders how much of a hazard it would be to be near Elena armed. Too much, she suspects. It’s a shame.

* * *

Mithian was taught to read and write nearly as soon as she was taught to speak, so that long before she had left the shallows of childhood for the murkier waters of adolescence she could pen or understand a treaty, a dispatch, or any confidential message she could trust to parchment and ink and the eyes of anyone who might reach it before the intended recipient. She learns cartography and does her best to learn mathematics, and her mother’s old tutor teaches her how to use simple codes.

For now, though, she has no need of anything more complicated than the most basic use of letters. Her handwriting, of course, is as exquisite as long practice can make it, but for this it wouldn’t matter—though of course it does matter, as everything matters—if it were no more than a scrawl, so long as it were legible.

 _To Princess Elena of Gawant_ , she begins, and winces. It is stilted, ungainly; she can do better. She has, after all, had a great deal of training in the clever and careful use of words.

She doesn’t know what to say, or how to say it.

Firmly, with a confidence she no longer quite feels, she scratches out the opening and tries again.

> To my Lady of Gawant,
> 
> I hope this letter finds you well. I was inspired by your example to take a greater pleasure in riding, and, thus, my father has begun to teach me how to hunt. Do you? I am told it is a useful skill for a ruler to have, most especially a lady, lest the kings and princes and lords she deals with

No. That will not do either. Mithian sounds as if she’s lecturing. Carefully she draws another line through the last unfinished sentence and continues.

> It is easily one of the most enjoyable things I have learned in preparation for taking a greater role in the governance of my father’s kingdom. Spending time with someone I hold in such esteem, amidst the beauties of the forests around our home, is a marvelous diversion from long days on display at court. I would recommend it to you, if you have not learned already, and the woods of Nemeth are of course open to you should you ever visit.
> 
> With regards,  
>  Mithian of Nemeth

She makes a few minor corrections and then copies it onto a clean sheet of parchment. Her hands are perfectly steady as she seals it.

Elena replies more quickly than Mithian had hoped, and they settle quickly into an exchange of letters that become easier and more natural with every exchange. When it happens, Mithian tells Elena of the first diplomatic overtures her father had her make on her own, as if she and not he had had the right, and somehow it’s easy enough to tell Elena that she was terrified the entire time—she can’t imagine ever telling that to anyone else. Some time later, Elena writes to say that her clumsiness and general unsuitability had somehow been cured, and she’d narrowly escaped marriage to Arthur of Camelot in the process. Her handwriting, at least, is certainly better than it was in the last, but her wit and her cheer are still the same. Mithian is gladder of that than she could ever have imagined when she first met Elena.

Over the course of their correspondence _To my Lady of Gawant_ has become _To my dear Elena_ , and _With regards, Mithian of Nemeth_ has become _Your affectionate Mithian_. Elena is more extravagant yet, occasionally sending off a letter that opens only _Dearest_ or closes with a _Yours, Elena_.

Mithian disciplines the flutter of her heart whenever she gets one of those letters. Even now, Elena has much less time for the proprieties than Mithian herself does. It means nothing.

* * *

One of the things that Mithian has always known is that life beneath a crown is not safe.

She fights Morgana because it must be done, even though nothing has ever prepared her for this, even though she wishes it didn’t have to be this way. If things had been different—

But things are not different, and she grits her teeth against the pain and breathes through the fear and tries to think of yet another plan.

* * *

She writes Elena as soon as she’s safely back in Nemeth. She knows how to make light of any situation, but she will not. _I was afraid I would die with the last thing I said to you a remark on the uncommon beauty of the weather_ , she concludes, and signs it as informally and affectionately as Elena ever has.

There are things one does not trust to writing, especially unasked.

Elena’s reply doesn’t come. Long after Mithian has begun to worry that she shouldn’t have said even what she did, but just as she’s starting to be genuinely afraid that Gawant has been snared in some new war or plot, Elena herself walks into the great hall of Mithian’s father’s castle. The trumpets that welcome her are startled, half a beat late—Elena has always been bad at waiting—and the herald stammers through his announcement.

Elena doesn’t so much walk the length of the room as trot down it, her hands pushing her skirts out of the way as she moves more quickly than anyone should. Mithian curls her fingers around the arms of her throne and watches, amazed.

“Sire,” Elena says, sinking into a graceful curtsy at Mithian’s father’s feet. Her smile when she looks up is nearly blinding. “I am relieved as can be that you and your daughter came safely through your recent ordeal.”

Mithian’s father looks from Elena to Mithian and back again. “I am sure I was your greatest concern,” he says, dryly, soft enough that only they can hear. Then, louder, “We welcome your concern. Mithian, show our guest somewhere quieter, if you will; she’s come a long way and should rest.”

Princesses do not leap to their feet, so Mithian doesn’t. She rises gracefully and walks decorously out of the great hall, Elena at her side.

“Where would you like to go?” Mithian asks.

“The stables,” Elena replies promptly, and Mithian laughs, because she shouldn’t have even had to ask.

But when they get there Elena doesn’t even spare a glance for the horses. She stares worriedly at Mithian, instead, her face brimming over with concern and relief and affection and—

Mithian will not build cloud-castles.

“Can I see your wrist?” Elena asks. Mithian holds out her hand, and Elena takes it, holding it steady in midair with her fingers steady under Mithian’s palm and her thumb across the back of Mithian’s hand, nowhere near the fading scar. Her touch _sparkles_ under Mithian’s skin, a sun-gold tingling.

“It doesn’t hurt,” Mithian says. Her voice is an instrument of her will, but it is soft and rough and disobedient now. “If you—”

Elena touches the shining strip of skin very lightly with one fingertip of her free hand. Mithian’s breath catches, and stops altogether when Elena turns their hands over, brushing her fingertip back and forth over the fragile skin at Mithian’s wrist. Mithian wonders if Elena can feel the pulse leaping against her fingertips.

“If you had died and the last thing you’d ever said to me was your last letter I would _never_ have forgiven you,” Elena says, voice shaky, still bent over Mithian’s hand. “Or her, I would—I would have—”

“I’m all right,” Mithian says, and Elena gulps in air and flings her arms around Mithian, clinging at first, then embracing. She is soft, for all her haste, warm and yielding where their bodies press together. She smells of cold wind and horses and the sharp clean scent of herb-filled soap.

Mithian’s arms are around Elena, too, and she isn’t sure when that happened. They hold each other for a long time, and then Elena says, “What would you do if I kissed you?” Her breath is hot against Mithian’s neck, and Mithian shivers.

“Kiss back,” she says.

And does.


End file.
